Index

The Legend of Lyonesse

Well once again we are into part of the Arthurian legend, According to medieval writings The Land of Lyonesse was the birthplace of Tristan and was the bolt hole for Mordred. One thing is for sure the legend of Lyonesse has been around a long time and is probably one of Cornwall's most loved ones.

Just when it sunk beneath the waves is debatable however a archaeological model for the submergence of Scilly has been published by Professor Charles Thomas (Thomas 1985). In the absence of radio carbon dates for the inter-tidal zone to calculate sea level change since 3,000 B.C., he used the vertical positions of submerged archaeological sites, which could be broadly dated from artifactual evidence or by analogy with sites elsewhere. In his book he says:

"While the Islands have been separated from mainland Britain for many thousands of years, the depth of water between them is so shallow that Bryher, Tresco and Samson are still joined at low astronomical tides (LAT) and a fall of only 10 metres would unite them all, except St. Agnes and the Western Rocks. Scilly, therefore, represents a drowned landscape illustrated by the existence of causeways linking the Islands, submerged stone field boundaries and other archaeological sites within the inter-tidal zone of shallow interior sea." 

According to Professor Thomas, his model represents "an average yearly rise in sea level of 2.1-2.6 millimetres, which means 21-26 centimetres every hundred years and 2.10-2.60 metres every thousand years." 

I had correspondence with Dr. Benjamin P. Horton Head of the Durham University Department that studies sea levels. He wrote that: "We don' really know much about late holocene (last 4000 yrs) sea-level changes. what we do know comes from models and interpolation of earlier records. generally RSL were lower 3000BP than 2000BP for cornwall but with sea-level about 3m below present at 3000BP and 2m at 2000BP."  So he put the figure at nearer 1 meter per thousand years. Which would make the sea levels around the Cornish Coast and Scilly some one meters lower at the time that the report of flooding appeared in the Saxon Chronicle's in 1099.

A meter difference in the tides would make a great difference to the size of the Islands and if Professor Thomas is right then 2.5 meters would make them even bigger. However, I do not think this would have been enough to join the Islands to the mainland.

The fact that Lyonesse has such a strong tradition as a folk tale means that like Noah's Ark it may date back an awful long time. The Lands End peninsular contains many interesting archeological sites dating back many millennium. I was recently carrying out some research into Trevilly in Sennen and trying to date the first fields to have been farmed. I studied the field names and found one which was called "Erredinna" Fort Acre in English which led me to believe I had found the place where the first stronghold was sited. The two adjoining fields were called Gew meaning first enclosure. The farmer checked my findings with the Cornwall Archeology Unit and having studied aerial photographs they confirmed that there was indeed a round on the site which probably dates back to the Iron age. Looking at other farms we are starting to find even more sites of these early dwellings. The origin of the legend of Lyonesse must, to a certain extent, stem from ancient folk-memories of the Neolithic inundations of areas around the Cornish coast, particularly Mount’s Bay, but more especially from the history of the Isles of Scilly themselves.

Medieval Arthurian writers tell us that Lyonesse was said to have been a fertile land with 140 churches. The land was supposedly drowned in a single cataclysmic night, with one survivor escaping on a white horse. Three Cornish families claim the survivor has there ancestor these are the Vyvyan who say that the ancester settled in St Buryan. So strong was the families believe in the legend that it is said that even after removing to Trelowarren on the Lizard they still kept a horse saddled in the stables just in case of an emergency. The second was the Trevelyan family whose coat of arms features a white horse emerging from the sea. The third claimant was the descendents of a Lord Goonhilly who it is said built Chapel Idne at Sennen Cove as a thanks for his deliverence. 

Once more we see a link to a similar story in Breton folk lore in the story of the drowning of Caer Ys, where King Gradlon escapes the flood on horseback, though losing his daughter to the sea on the way. The Bretons also claim that Tristan hailed from Leonois in Brittany. So many times we come across this Cornish / Breton link in the tales of Arthur.

But there are other things which give clues to the lost land.

The Reverend H. J. Whitfeld in his book  “Scilly and its Legends” in 1852, wrote about the destruction of Lyonesse claiming that Mordred survived the fateful Battle of Camlann in which Arthur was killed and that he pursued the few survivors of Arthur’s men through Cornwall and into the Lyonesse itself. The tale tells how when they reached the middle of Lyonesse, a strange cloud that had travelled ahead of Mordred’s army transformed itself into the ghost of Merlin, who immediately uttered the terrible spell which plunged the doomed land and the traitor beneath the sea forever. The pitiful remainder of Arthur’s men, safe on the hilltops which from that moment became the Isles of Scilly, founded a religious house on what is now Tresco in thanks for their deliverance.

Criag Wetherhill in his book Myths & Legends of Cornwall says the following

The origin of the legend of Lyonesse must, to a certain extent, stem from ancient folk-memories of the Neolithic inundations of areas around the Cornish coast, particularly Mount’s Bay, but more especially from the history of the Isles of Scilly themselves.

At this point, it is worth remembering the Lord of Goonhilly, who owned a substantial piece of Lyonesse, and who escaped the final flood, landing at Sennen Cove and founding a chapel. Goonhilly (“hunting downs”) is a tract of heathland on the Lizard peninsula and almost certainly unconnected with this legend, but it is very similar to the name Goonhily (“salt-water downs”) which was apparently once applied to the area of Ennor now occupied by the Eastern Isles, one of which is still called Ganilly. To complete the jigsaw, the old name of Sennen Cove was Porth Goonhilly (“harbour for Goonbily”), indicating that it was the principal mainland harbour serving the old Sillina in ancient times.

The final insurgence of the sea which divided the islands probably occurred in the post-Roman centuries (and the waters of Crow Sound, the original central valley, have only been navigable by vessels of any size since Tudor times), which ties in quite well with the Arthurian link. This link in turn, was strengthened by historically suite feasible legends